Psalms 89:23
Psa 89:23-29 What is promised in Psa 89:26 is a world-wide dominion, not merely dominion within the compass promised in the primeval times (Gen 15:18; 2Ch 9:26), in which case it ought to have been said ובנהר (of the Euphrates). Nor does the promise, however, sound so definite and boundless here as in Psa 72:8, but it is indefinite and universal, without any need for our asking what rivers are intended by נהרות. נתן יד בּ, like שׁלח (in Isa 11:14, of a giving and taking possession. With אף־אני (with retreated tone, as in Psa 119:63, Psa 119:125) God tells with what He will answer David’s filial love. Him who is the latest-born among the sons of Jesse, God makes the first-born (בּכור from בּכר, to be early, opp. לקשׁ, to be late, vid., Job 2:1-13 :21), and therefore the most favoured of the “sons of the Most High,” Psa 82:6. And as, according to Deu 28:1, Israel is to be high (עליון) above all nations of the earth, so David, Israel’s king, in whom Israel’s national glory realizes itself, is made as the high one (עליון) with respect to the kings, i.e., above the kings, of the earth. In the person of David his seed is included; and it is that position of honour which, after having been only prelusively realized in David and Solomon, must go on being fulfilled in his seed exactly as the promise runs. The covenant with David is, according to Psa 89:29, one that shall stand for ever. David is therefore, as Psa 89:30 affirms, eternal in his seed; God will make David’s seed and throne לעד, into eternal, i.e., into such as will abide for ever, like the days of heaven, everlasting. This description of eternal duration is, as also in Sir. 45:15, Bar. 1:11, Taken from Deu 11:21; the whole of Psa 89:30 is a poetic reproduction of 2Sa 7:16.
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